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「ピュアミュート」 (Pyuamyūto)
“Pure Mute”
Well, that was intense. Flip Flappers has dabbled in action, adventure, horror, and basically the entire genre spectrum with seemingly effortless success, and it’s now turning its distorted lens to… soap opera, I guess. While this was not a particularly surprising turn, considering the regular spats Cocona and Papika get into, I was more expecting Flip Flappers to start addressing this whole Mimi thing, considering all the post-credits teasing they’ve done on the subject. Instead, the most viable Mimi-candidate shows up once and has no lines, and the plot passes over her for now to give us another episode about Yayaka.
This episode was about Yayaka, right? I assume that the corner of Pure Illusion they dive into this episode is hers, with the pure white, featureless room representing her self-professed purity of purpose (and perhaps a past being messed with in a lab). Pure white except, of course, for Cocona and the twins trapped in a homely room in some strange hair cocoon. Er, symbolism? What that all means I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader, but for the most part it seems Flip Flappers has been uncharacteristically straightforward about probing Yayaka’s character. She almost admits out loud that what drives her is equal parts self-denial and jealous spite. And it’s all shown together with a flashback of her childhood. Woah, backstory! That’s awfully plain for Flip Flappers. I don’t mind actually mind more of this directness, though. It’s not like we didn’t get imagery aplenty anyway, and the plot does need to move and learning more about the nominal villains is one way to move it. So, yeah, mix things up a bit, pair the twins with Cocona and Yayaka with Papika, and get some interactions going.
We now know of Yayaka’s tragedy but, curiously, not really her motivations. Yes, she was the one who extended her hand to Cocona. She was the one who was supposed to be her best friend. And she is the one who ultimately destroyed all that. But why does she do it to herself? We can feel the emotional intensity, certainly, in the her big fight against her own happy memories, but from where does it come from? In choosing her (fake) friendship over her (fake) allegiance to the KKK by refusing to carve open Cocona, what has she sacrificed? I suppose Flip Flappers needs to string the mystery of its plot along for a while yet, and if Yayaka makes it perhaps she could tell us.
Speaking of mystery, how about Papika? Unlike Yayaka, she makes clear her attachment to Cocona, but we arguably have more cause to doubt her than to doubt Yayaka. If you recall, back in episode one she was going through partners without much concern. Cocona was supposed to be ‘the one’, but as I keep asking every week now, who’s Mimi? I don’t usually care to speculate on plot, but perhaps next week the cast will be rearranged a bit and we’ll get some answers. Toto, Yuyu and Mimi vs Cocona, Papika and Yayaka has something of a ring to it, don’t you think?
Preview
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I’m beginning to see why Papika is specifically attracted to Cocona. Perhaps she doesn’t see Cocona, but Mimi, whomever the hell she may be.
That would explain why she would she would stick to Cocona from the get go. The girl in the boat along with Cocona in her dream share some physical resemblance to that mother figure from that other vision, and in that vision the name Mimi came up. I’m beginning to see some threads her.
And goddamit if Yayaka dies. Seriously, it would be a huge waste to kill her off now at her heel-face turn and not get to see her change.
The woman in Cocona’s dream is another one of those well-known optical illusions, the maiden or the crone, and I won’t be surprised if she’s supposed to Mimi in some form or another. Symbolically or otherwise. Something something her grandmother is suspect something something.
I’m really enjoying this show. I don’t mind the drips of plot or the pace at which things are revealed. I love shows which can nicely balance abstract weirdness with coherent and thoughtful story design and I think this show does that.
It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I’m happy to be slurping.
I liked it even though the things I want to know bug in a good way.
The mystery of the group that took Cocona is part of it, if part of our KKK (or the Spanish Catholic Groups who wear the same shape of outfit but in colors), if they put something in her arm to track her like the twins tracked her here why not take the fragment then? Or are they a third party we don’t know of yet?
And Papika seams to know it is Cocona very well except when she does not that is very strange and hard on Cocona.
This is my favorite show this season.
It seems to be that the amorphous show up wherever Cocona goes, so they track her to nab the shards. The one in Cocona’s leg is now the last one. Or something like that.
I feel like they spelled out Yayaka’s motivations pretty well. This is someone who was basically raised by that organization as a solider/weapon. Her whole life effectively controlled and even her most important friendship was initially a mission. Her place was supposed to be as a loyal solider within that group and Cocona’s partner. Clearly plans changed with those artificial kids being made and Cocona was apparently not needed. Soon enough it felt like her place next to Cocona was already taken by Papika, which wasn’t great. Then she ends up in direct conflict with her.
So that core place for her was in visible jeopardy from her point of view. Then we have the organization showing more and more how her position isn’t particularly secure up to the point where they are literally ready to replace her. So now Yayaka is someone who has everything to lose. The one thing she has left (her position within that group) will be gone if she doesn’t fight. The emotional response from Yayaka is understandable in that case. Put in a situation where she has to make a major sacrifice. Either her friendship or the environment that had been her home.